California wildfires claim more than 50 homes, thousands in path

Associated Press

Published 5:09 am, Tuesday, September 1, 2009

LOS ANGELES -- A relentless Southern California wildfire raged this morning with 53 homes up in smoke, thousands more threatened and new rounds of evacuations as towering flames crackled close to neighborhoods on the northern and southern flanks.

Flames are plowing through half-century-old thickets of tinder-dry brush, bush and trees just 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Firefighters awaited daybreak to learn the new extent of the six-day-old fire, which is now expected to burn for weeks.

The blaze threatened some 12,000 homes but had already done its worst to the suburban Tujunga Canyon neighborhood, where residents returned to their wrecked homes.

Related Stories

Bert Voorhees and his son yesterday fetched several cases of wine from the brackish water of their backyard swimming pool, about all he salvaged from his home.

"You're going to be living in a lunar landscape for at least a couple of years, and these trees might not come back," the 53-year-old Voorhees said. "Are enough of our neighbors going to rebuild?"

About 2,000 people were chased from their homes in triple-digit heat as fire bosses said it could take weeks to contain the fire. Fire spokesman Paul Lowenthal said today the blaze is expected to be fully surrounded Sept. 15.

Crews fighting the blaze also were contending with favorable fire conditions such as high temperatures topping 100 degrees and low humidity. Temperatures near the fire were expected to hit 102 degrees today, the National Weather Service said.

By late yesterday, the fire had scorched more than more than 164 square miles, or about 105,000 acres, in parts of the Angeles National Forest.

Only 5 percent of the Station fire, the largest of several California wildfires, is contained so far.

The swath of fire extends from the densely populated foothill communities of Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland in the south to the high desert ranchlands of Acton.

Beth Halaas knew her creekside home in Big Tujunga Canyon was gone when she saw her favorite Norwegian dishware on television news. But she was desperate to see for herself and cajoled fire officials to escort her through barricaded roads.

"It's just stuff," she murmured, as her 5-year-old son Robert kicked at a deflated soccer ball in his sandbox. She raked ceramic cups from the ashes.

Two firefighters -- Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale -- were killed when their vehicle plummeted off a mountain road on Sunday.

Fire crews set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at Mount Wilson, home to at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas, and the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. It also houses two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs in its role as both a landmark for its historic discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.

If the flames hit the mountain, cell phone service and TV and radio transmissions would be disrupted, but the extent was unclear.

T.J. Lynch and his wife, Maggie, were among residents who evacuated late Monday after the eerie orange glow on the horizon turned into flames cresting the hill near their Tujunga home.

"It's pretty surreal, pretty humbling, how your life is represented in these objects that you collect and then you have to whittle them down," he said, describing the difficulty of choosing what to bring with them.

He said his wife would miss the 1965 Mustang that she has owned since she was a teenager. He would miss the antiques that decorate their home.

"It's a beautiful place -- is? Was? I don't know anymore," he said of their home.

The blaze in the Los Angeles foothills was the biggest but not most destructive of California's wildfires. Northeast of Sacramento, a wind-driven fire destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn.

The 340-acre blaze wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burned cars.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday toured the Auburn area, where only charred remnants of some homes remained. At some houses, the only things left on the foundation are metal cabinets and washers and dryers.

East of Los Angeles, a 1,000-acre fire damaged one home, threatened 2,000 others and forced the evacuation of a scenic community of apple orchards in an oak-studded area of San Bernardino County. Brush in the area had not burned for a century, fire officials said. Flames burning like huge candles erupted between rocky slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains and the neat farmhouses below. A few miles away, a 300-acre wildfire that erupted on the edge of Yucaipa forced the evacuation of 200 homes.